By Paul Nicholson
January 24 – Bloomberg Sports is launching its first weekly TV show this weekend on its own network, Bloomberg TV Africa. Titled Football Dynamics, the show will air three times on Saturdays and repeat twice on Sundays.
January 23 – Fresh details of next month’s draw in Nice for the first ever 24-team European Championship finals are expected to be revealed on Friday after UEFA complete its first executive committee meeting of the year at its Swiss headquarters.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 23 – The financial power of Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City has stretched to the other side of the world with the announcement that the high-flying Premier League club have taken over cash-strapped A-League team Melbourne Heart.
By Paul Nicholson
January 23 – A Chilean fist division club has opened up the Israel/Palestine football debate on a different continent, but with the same entrenched political positions coming to the fore.
By Tom Parsons
January 23 – Stan Collymore has called for Twitter to make it their responsibility to take action against those who send abusive and racist Tweets. The former Liverpool star turned media pundit has been subjected to offensive tweets over a long period of time and has finally decided enough is enough and quit the social network all together – he returned to the social network later in the day.
January 23 – Reports of a Malaysian gambling syndicate approaching I-League club Munbai FC have prompted the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to move towards setting up an anti-corruption unit.
By David Owen
January 23 – Paris Saint-Germain’s meteoric, Qatar-fuelled surge to the top table of European football is highlighted today by publication of the 2012-13 Deloitte Football Money League. The table, a simple ranking of the world’s top 20 clubs by revenue, has PSG at number five, below only the two Spanish giants, European champions Bayern Munich and Manchester United – and above Manchester City, the other club most palpably boosted by Gulf funding,
By Ben Nicholson
January 22 – As hosts South Africa exit the African Nations Championship (Chan) amid recriminations and criticism that have even drawn South African president Jacob Zuma (pictured) into the debate, the local organisers have announced prize money of R34 million (3.1 million) for the tournament.
January 22 – Former Argentine World Cup star Osvaldo Ardiles says he is “fine and doing well” after being admitted to hospital following a car crash in the Falkland Islands. Ardiles, 61, became a legend not only in his country after Argentina’s 1978 World Cup triumph but also at Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur where is regarded as one of the all-time greats, winning both the FA Cup and Uefa Cup.
January 22 – EA Sports has announced a continuation of its partnership with the referees’ association for professional football in England, though no figure has been announced for the sponsorship.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
January 22 – STES, the marketing arm of the Czech football association FACR, has been negotiating the sale of broadcasting rights for Gambrinus liga. Local company Pragosport and international media rights agency MP & Silva agency are said to be the leading contenders in the race to acquire the broadcasting rights for the top tier of the Czech professional football league.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 22 – As the Chinese celebrate their New Year, the year of the horse, so the football federation welcomes a new president who faces a “colossal” task and a race against time to repair the sport’s corruption-tainted image off the pitch and a lack of progress on it.
January 22 – Despite the bitter political tensions between the two neighbours, North Korea has agreed to send men’s and women’s football teams to South Korea for this year’s Asian Games in Incheon.
By Alexander Krassmirov
January 21 – Serbian former head coach of Levski Sofia Slavisa Jokanovic has threatened to sue the Bulgarian club for unpaid wages. Jokanovic took over the team in July 2013, but remained at the helm just three months before being sacked last October because of poor results.
By Paul Nicholson
January 21 – The percentage of club-trained players making it into first team squads in Europe has hit an all-time low, according to data from the CIES Football Observatory’s sixth annual Demographic Study.